FOOTPRINTS ON THE SEASHORE.
It must be a spirit much unlike my own which can keep itself in healthand vigor without sometimes stealing from the sultry sunshine of theworld to plunge into the cool bath of solitude. At intervals, and notinfrequent ones, the forest and the ocean summon me--one with the roarof its waves, the other with the murmur of its boughs--forth from thehaunts of men. But I must wander many a mile ere I could stand beneaththe shadow of even one primeval tree, much less be lost among themultitude of hoary trunks and hidden from the earth and sky by themystery of darksome foliage. Nothing is within my daily reach morelike a forest than the acre or two of woodland near some suburbanfarmhouse. When, therefore, the yearning for seclusion becomes anecessity within me, I am drawn to the seashore which extends its lineof rude rocks and seldom-trodden sands for leagues around our bay.Setting forth at my last ramble on a September morning, I bound myselfwith a hermit's vow to interchange no thoughts with man or woman, toshare no social pleasure, but to derive all that day's enjoyment fromshore and sea and sky, from my soul's communion with these, and fromfantasies and recollections or anticipated realities. Surely here isenough to feed a human spirit for a single day.--Farewell, then, busyworld! Till your evening lights shall shine along the street--tillthey gleam upon my sea-flushed face as I tread homeward--free me fromyour ties and let me be a peaceful outlaw.
Highways and cross-paths are hastily traversed, and, clambering down acrag, I find myself at the extremity of a long beach. How gladly doesthe spirit leap forth and suddenly enlarge its sense of being to thefull extent of the broad blue, sunny deep! A greeting and a homage tothe sea! I descend over its margin and dip my hand into the wave thatmeets me, and bathe my brow. That far-resounding roar is Ocean's voiceof welcome. His salt breath brings a blessing along with it. Now letus pace together--the reader's fancy arm in arm with mine--this noblebeach, which extends a mile or more from that craggy promontory toyonder rampart of broken rocks. In front, the sea; in the rear, aprecipitous bank the grassy verge of which is breaking away year afteryear, and flings down its tufts of verdure upon the barrenness below.The beach itself is a broad space of sand, brown and sparkling, withhardly any pebbles intermixed. Near the water's edge there is a wetmargin which glistens brightly in the sunshine and reflects objectslike a mirror, and as we tread along the glistening border a dry spotflashes around each footstep, but grows moist again as we lift ourfeet. In some spots the sand receives a complete impression of thesole, square toe and all; elsewhere it is of such marble firmness thatwe must stamp heavily to leave a print even of the iron-shod heel.Along the whole of this extensive beach gambols the surf-wave. Now itmakes a feint of dashing onward in a fury, yet dies away with a meekmurmur and does but kiss the strand; now, after many such abortiveefforts, it rears itself up in an unbroken line, heightening as itadvances, without a speck of foam on its green crest. With how fiercea roar it flings itself forward and rushes far up the beach!
As I threw my eyes along the edge of the surf I remember that I wasstartled, as Robinson Crusoe might have been, by the sense that humanlife was within the magic circle of my solitude. Afar off in theremote distance of the beach, appearing like sea-nymphs, or someairier things such as might tread upon the feathery spray, was a groupof girls. Hardly had I beheld them, when they passed into the shadowof the rocks and vanished. To comfort myself--for truly I would fainhave gazed a while longer--I made acquaintance with a flock ofbeach-birds. These little citizens of the sea and air preceded me byabout a stone's-throw along the strand, seeking, I suppose, for foodupon its margin. Yet, with a philosophy which mankind would do well toimitate, they drew a continual pleasure from their toil for asubsistence. The sea was each little bird's great playmate. Theychased it downward as it swept back, and again ran up swiftly beforethe impending wave, which sometimes overtook them and bore them offtheir feet. But they floated as lightly as one of their own featherson the breaking crest. In their airy flutterings they seemed to reston the evanescent spray. Their images--long-legged little figures withgray backs and snowy bosoms--were seen as distinctly as the realitiesin the mirror of the glistening strand. As I advanced they flew ascore or two of yards, and, again alighting, recommenced theirdalliance with the surf-wave; and thus they bore me company along thebeach, the types of pleasant fantasies, till at its extremity theytook wing over the ocean and were gone. After forming a friendshipwith these small surf-spirits, it is really worth a sigh to find nomemorial of them save their multitudinous little tracks in the sand.
When we have paced the length of the beach, it is pleasant and notunprofitable to retrace our steps and recall the whole mood andoccupation of the mind during the former passage. Our tracks, beingall discernible, will guide us with an observing consciousness throughevery unconscious wandering of thought and fancy. Here we followed thesurf in its reflux to pick up a shell which the sea seemed loth torelinquish. Here we found a seaweed with an immense brown leaf, andtrailed it behind us by its long snake-like stalk. Here we seized alive horseshoe by the tail, and counted the many claws of that queermonster. Here we dug into the sand for pebbles, and skipped them uponthe surface of the water. Here we wet our feet while examining ajelly-fish which the waves, having just tossed it up, now sought tosnatch away again. Here we trod along the brink of a fresh-waterbrooklet which flows across the beach, becoming shallower and moreshallow, till at last it sinks into the sand and perishes in theeffort to bear its little tribute to the main. Here some vagaryappears to have bewildered us, for our tracks go round and round andare confusedly intermingled, as if we had found a labyrinth upon thelevel beach. And here amid our idle pastime we sat down upon almostthe only stone that breaks the surface of the sand, and were lost inan unlooked-for and overpowering conception of the majesty andawfulness of the great deep. Thus by tracking our footprints in thesand we track our own nature in its wayward course, and steal a glanceupon it when it never dreams of being so observed. Such glances alwaysmake us wiser.
This extensive beach affords room for another pleasant pastime. Withyour staff you may write verses--love-verses if they please youbest--and consecrate them with a woman's name. Here, too, may beinscribed thoughts, feelings, desires, warm outgushings from theheart's secret places, which you would not pour upon the sand withoutthe certainty that almost ere the sky has looked upon them the seawill wash them out. Stir not hence till the record be effaced. Now(for there is room enough on your canvas) draw huge faces--huge asthat of the Sphynx on Egyptian sands--and fit them with bodies ofcorresponding immensity and legs which might stride halfway to yonderisland. Child's-play becomes magnificent on so grand a scale. But,after all, the most fascinating employment is simply to write yourname in the sand. Draw the letters gigantic, so that two strides maybarely measure them, and three for the long strokes; cut deep, thatthe record may be permanent. Statesmen and warriors and poets havespent their strength in no better cause than this. Is it accomplished?Return, then, in an hour or two, and seek for this mighty record of aname. The sea will have swept over it, even as time rolls its effacingwaves over the names of statesmen and warriors and poets. Hark! thesurf-wave laughs at you.
Passing from the beach, I begin to clamber over the crags, making mydifficult way among the ruins of a rampart shattered and broken by theassaults of a fierce enemy. The rocks rise in every variety ofattitude. Some of them have their feet in the foam and are shaggedhalfway upward with seaweed; some have been hollowed almost intocaverns by the unwearied toil of the sea, which can afford to spendcenturies in wearing away a rock, or even polishing a pebble. One hugerock ascends in monumental shape, with a face like a giant'stombstone, on which the veins resemble inscriptions, but in an unknowntongue. We will fancy them the forgotten characters of an antediluvianrace, or else that Nature's own hand has here recorded a mysterywhich, could I read her language, would make mankind the wiser and thehappier. How many a thing has troubled me with that same idea! Pass onand leave it unexplained. Here is a narrow avenue which might seem tohave been hewn through
the very heart of an enormous crag, affordingpassage for the rising sea to thunder back and forth, filling it withtumultuous foam and then leaving its floor of black pebbles bare andglistening. In this chasm there was once an intersecting vein ofsofter stone, which the waves have gnawed away piecemeal, while thegranite walls remain entire on either side. How sharply and with whatharsh clamor does the sea rake back the pebbles as it momentarilywithdraws into its own depths! At intervals the floor of the chasm isleft nearly dry, but anon, at the outlet, two or three great waves areseen struggling to get in at once; two hit the walls athwart, whileone rushes straight through, and all three thunder as if with rage andtriumph. They heap the chasm with a snow-drift of foam and spray.While watching this scene I can never rid myself of the idea that amonster endowed with life and fierce energy is striving to burst hisway through the narrow pass. And what a contrast to look through thestormy chasm and catch a glimpse of the calm bright sea beyond!
Many interesting discoveries may be made among these broken cliffs.Once, for example, I found a dead seal which a recent tempest hadtossed into the nook of the rocks, where his shaggy carcase lay rolledin a heap of eel-grass as if the sea-monster sought to hide himselffrom my eye. Another time a shark seemed on the point of leaping fromthe surf to swallow me, nor did I wholly without dread approach nearenough to ascertain that the man-eater had already met his own deathfrom some fisherman in the bay. In the same ramble I encountered abird--a large gray bird--but whether a loon or a wild goose or theidentical albatross of the Ancient Mariner was beyond my ornithologyto decide. It reposed so naturally on a bed of dry seaweed, with itshead beside its wing, that I almost fancied it alive, and trod softlylest it should suddenly spread its wings skyward. But the sea-birdwould soar among the clouds no more, nor ride upon its native waves;so I drew near and pulled out one of its mottled tail-feathers for aremembrance. Another day I discovered an immense bone wedged into achasm of the rocks; it was at least ten feet long, curved like ascymitar, bejewelled with barnacles and small shellfish and partlycovered with a growth of seaweed. Some leviathan of former ages hadused this ponderous mass as a jaw-bone. Curiosities of a minuter ordermay be observed in a deep reservoir which is replenished with water atevery tide, but becomes a lake among the crags save when the sea is atits height. At the bottom of this rocky basin grow marine plants, someof which tower high beneath the water and cast a shadow in thesunshine. Small fishes dart to and fro and hide themselves among theseaweed; there is also a solitary crab who appears to lead the life ofa hermit, communing with none of the other denizens of the place, andlikewise several five-fingers; for I know no other name than thatwhich children give them. If your imagination be at all accustomed tosuch freaks, you may look down into the depths of this pool and fancyit the mysterious depth of ocean. But where are the hulks andscattered timbers of sunken ships? where the treasures that old Oceanhoards? where the corroded cannon? where the corpses and skeletons ofseamen who went down in storm and battle?
On the day of my last ramble--it was a September day, yet as warm assummer--what should I behold as I approached the above-described basinbut three girls sitting on its margin and--yes, it is veritablyso--laving their snowy feet in the sunny water? These, these are thewarm realities of those three visionary shapes that flitted from me onthe beach. Hark their merry voices as they toss up the water withtheir feet! They have not seen me. I must shrink behind this rock andsteal away again.
In honest truth, vowed to solitude as I am, there is something in thisencounter that makes the heart flutter with a strangely pleasantsensation. I know these girls to be realities of flesh and blood, yet,glancing at them so briefly, they mingle like kindred creatures withthe ideal beings of my mind. It is pleasant, likewise, to gaze downfrom some high crag and watch a group of children gathering pebblesand pearly shells and playing with the surf as with old Ocean's hoarybeard. Nor does it infringe upon my seclusion to see yonder boat atanchor off the shore swinging dreamily to and fro and rising andsinking with the alternate swell, while the crew--four gentlemen inroundabout jackets--are busy with their fishing-lines. But with aninward antipathy and a headlong flight do I eschew the presence of anymeditative stroller like myself, known by his pilgrim-staff, hissauntering step, his shy demeanor, his observant yet abstracted eye.
From such a man as if another self had scared me I scramble hastilyover the rocks, and take refuge in a nook which many a secret hour hasgiven me a right to call my own. I would do battle for it even withthe churl that should produce the title-deeds. Have not my musingsmelted into its rocky walls and sandy floor and made them a portion ofmyself? It is a recess in the line of cliffs, walled round by a rough,high precipice which almost encircles and shuts in a little space ofsand. In front the sea appears as between the pillars of a portal; inthe rear the precipice is broken and intermixed with earth which givesnourishment not only to clinging and twining shrubs, but to trees thatgrip the rock with their naked roots and seem to struggle hard forfooting and for soil enough to live upon. These are fir trees, butoaks hang their heavy branches from above, and throw down acorns onthe beach, and shed their withering foliage upon the waves. At thisautumnal season the precipice is decked with variegated splendor.Trailing wreaths of scarlet flaunt from the summit downward; tufts ofyellow-flowering shrubs and rose-bushes, with their reddened leavesand glossy seed-berries, sprout from each crevice; at every glance Idetect some new light or shade of beauty, all contrasting with thestern gray rock. A rill of water trickles down the cliff and fills alittle cistern near the base. I drain it at a draught, and find itfresh and pure. This recess shall be my dining-hall. And what thefeast? A few biscuits made savory by soaking them in sea-water, a tuftof samphire gathered from the beach, and an apple for the dessert. Bythis time the little rill has filled its reservoir again, and as Iquaff it I thank God more heartily than for a civic banquet that hegives me the healthful appetite to make a feast of bread and water.
Dinner being over, I throw myself at length upon the sand and, baskingin the sunshine, let my mind disport itself at will. The walls of thismy hermitage have no tongue to tell my follies, though I sometimesfancy that they have ears to hear them and a soul to sympathize. Thereis a magic in this spot. Dreams haunt its precincts and flit around mein broad sunlight, nor require that sleep shall blindfold me to realobjects ere these be visible. Here can I frame a story of two lovers,and make their shadows live before me and be mirrored in the tranquilwater as they tread along the sand, leaving no footprints. Here,should I will it, I can summon up a single shade and be myself herlover.--Yes, dreamer, but your lonely heart will be the colder forsuch fancies.--Sometimes, too, the Past comes back, and finds me here,and in her train come faces which were gladsome when I knew them, yetseem not gladsome now. Would that my hiding-place were lonelier, sothat the Past might not find me!--Get ye all gone, old friends, andlet me listen to the murmur of the sea--a melancholy voice, but lesssad than yours. Of what mysteries is it telling? Of sunken ships andwhereabouts they lie? Of islands afar and undiscovered whose tawnychildren are unconscious of other islands and of continents, and deemthe stars of heaven their nearest neighbors? Nothing of all this.What, then? Has it talked for so many ages and meant nothing all thewhile? No; for those ages find utterance in the sea's unchangingvoice, and warn the listener to withdraw his interest from mortalvicissitudes and let the infinite idea of eternity pervade his soul.This is wisdom, and therefore will I spend the next half-hour inshaping little boats of driftwood and launching them on voyages acrossthe cove, with the feather of a sea-gull for a sail. If the voice ofages tell me true, this is as wise an occupation as to build ships offive hundred tons and launch them forth upon the main, bound to "FarCathay." Yet how would the merchant sneer at me!
And, after all, can such philosophy be true? Methinks I could find athousand arguments against it. Well, then, let yonder shaggy rockmid-deep in the surf--see! he is somewhat wrathful: he rages and roarsand foams,--let that tall rock be my antagonist, and let me exercisemy oratory like him
of Athens who bandied words with an angry sea andgot the victory. My maiden-speech is a triumphant one, for thegentleman in seaweed has nothing to offer in reply save an immitigableroaring. His voice, indeed, will be heard a long while after mine ishushed. Once more I shout and the cliffs reverberate the sound. Ohwhat joy for a shy man to feel himself so solitary that he may lifthis voice to its highest pitch without hazard of a listener!--Buthush! Be silent, my good friend! Whence comes that stifled laughter?It was musical, but how should there be such music in my solitude?Looking upward, I catch a glimpse of three faces peeping from thesummit of the cliff like angels between me and their native sky.--Ah,fair girls! you may make yourself merry at my eloquence, but it was myturn to smile when I saw your white feet in the pool. Let us keep eachother's secrets.
The sunshine has now passed from my hermitage, except a gleam upon thesand just where it meets the sea. A crowd of gloomy fantasies willcome and haunt me if I tarry longer here in the darkening twilight ofthese gray rocks. This is a dismal place in some moods of the mind.Climb we, therefore, the precipice, and pause a moment on the brinkgazing down into that hollow chamber by the deep where we have beenwhat few can be--sufficient to our own pastime. Yes, say the wordoutright: self-sufficient to our own happiness. How lonesome looks therecess now, and dreary too, like all other spots where happiness hasbeen! There lies my shadow in the departing sunshine with its headupon the sea. I will pelt it with pebbles. A hit! a hit! I clap myhands in triumph, and see my shadow clapping its unreal hands andclaiming the triumph for itself. What a simpleton must I have been allday, since my own shadow makes a mock of my fooleries!
Homeward! homeward! It is time to hasten home. It is time--it is time;for as the sun sinks over the western wave the sea grows melancholyand the surf has a saddened tone. The distant sails appear astray andnot of earth in their remoteness amid the desolate waste. My spiritwanders forth afar, but finds no resting-place and comes shiveringback. It is time that I were hence. But grudge me not the day that hasbeen spent in seclusion which yet was not solitude, since the greatsea has been my companion, and the little sea-birds my friends, andthe wind has told me his secrets, and airy shapes have flitted aroundme in my hermitage. Such companionship works an effect upon a man'scharacter as if he had been admitted to the society of creatures thatare not mortal. And when, at noontide, I tread the crowded streets,the influence of this day will still be felt; so that I shall walkamong men kindly and as a brother, with affection and sympathy, butyet shall not melt into the indistinguishable mass of humankind. Ishall think my own thoughts and feel my own emotions and possess myindividuality unviolated.
But it is good at the eve of such a day to feel and know that thereare men and women in the world. That feeling and that knowledge aremine at this moment, for on the shore, far below me, the fishing-partyhave landed from their skiff and are cooking their scaly prey by afire of driftwood kindled in the angle of two rude rocks. The threevisionary girls are likewise there. In the deepening twilight, whilethe surf is dashing near their hearth, the ruddy gleam of the firethrows a strange air of comfort over the wild cove, bestrewn as it iswith pebbles and seaweed and exposed to the "melancholy main."Moreover, as the smoke climbs up the precipice, it brings with it asavory smell from a pan of fried fish and a black kettle of chowder,and reminds me that my dinner was nothing but bread and water and atuft of samphire and an apple. Methinks the party might find room foranother guest at that flat rock which serves them for a table; and ifspoons be scarce, I could pick up a clam-shell on the beach. They seeme now; and--the blessing of a hungry man upon him!--one of them sendsup a hospitable shout: "Halloo, Sir Solitary! Come down and sup withus!" The ladies wave their handkerchiefs. Can I decline? No; and be itowned, after all my solitary joys, that this is the sweetest moment ofa day by the seashore.